Paintings add pop to ancient tradition

Ru Xiaofan, 47, likes to demonstrate the contrdiction between nature and materialism in his large, colorful paintings.

Flowers are a favorite subject in Ru's works.

Ru is holding his second solo exhibition at Dialogue Space Gallery. Photos provided to China Daily

Most visitors to Ru Xiaofan's new exhibition cannot help apologizing when they meet the artist himself.

"Oh, you are not a woman," they say, after being confused by Ru's name.

Flowers are a favorite subject in Ru's works.

Ru shrugs it off, as his name, which sounds more like that of a beautiful long-haired lady, has caused similar misunderstandings in the past. But he cannot deny that the flower paintings in the exhibition add to the confusion as flowers are usually considered more feminine in Chinese culture and are not a common subject for today's maverick male artists.

But what others might see as coincidence actually makes Ru what he is today: a gentleman steeped in both Chinese and French cultures, who has built a reputation as a fine painter of flowers.

Although maintaining a low profile in China compared with some of his more celebrated peers, Ru, who was one of the first Chinese students to move overseas after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), has become a well-known and respected artist abroad, especially in France, where he based himself 28 years ago.

At La Coupole, a famous restaurant in Paris that once attracted patrons such as Salvador Dali, Alexander Calder, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso, Ru is an honored guest as he painted part of the ceiling to mark the restaurant's 80th anniversary in 2008.

Ru was "naughty" by painting naked women, bubbles and tubes on the ceiling, so that a strange atmosphere was added to this grand eatery that entertains the upper class and serious gourmets.

Ru took the same mischievous approach to his flower paintings, which are the main theme of his latest solo exhibition, InspireExpire, at Dialogue Space.

On view are a dozen paintings made in 2010 and this year. To the simple colorful flowers inspired by his wild imagination or by the "models" he buys from markets, Ru has added images of mass-produced commodities such as plastic bottles of purified water, Coca-Cola cans and Mickey Mouse toys, some of which are iconic elements of the pop art produced by people like Andy Warhol. But Ru is not commenting on consumerism.

"As everyone seeks a better life by pursuing materialism, they realize in the end that such a life always produces large amounts of useless garbage. So, life is not becoming better," Ru told METRO.

He said in his paintings he is just trying to reflect that contradiction.

The Dialogue Space held an exhibition before Ru's current show, which also featured flowers. But compared with those cartoon-like sunflowers painted by a "post-80s" female artist from Yunnan province, Ru's flowers are more sophisticated.

Hou Hanru, a United States-based art critic and curator, said Ru tends to "mingle bright colors with gray layers to generate scenes of ambiguity and chaos".

Ru was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in 1954. After graduating from the department of fine arts at Nanjing Normal University, he continued his studies at the National Superior School of Fine Arts in Paris.

Ru said being born into a typical jiangnan environment known for its streams and picturesque countryside is not the reason he became obsessed with flowers. Nor does he agree that there is anything feminine about painting flowers.

Ru points out that flowers have been a serious subject of art from the beginnings of traditional Chinese ink painting.

"The mountains and waters, birds and flowers were the favorite subjects of those traditional masters and inspired them a great deal," he told METRO.

"Flowers also represent desires. Once it grows, a flower will reproduce very quickly, and that's how I do these paintings - one after another," Ru added.

Flowers are defined by their environment, said Zhu Qingsheng, curator of the exhibition. If a flower grew in jiangnan and was then transplanted to Paris and survived, it would be a very peculiar flower.

It probably is blossoming in a perfume bottle now or has found its way onto canvas, he said.

"Ru himself is such a flower," he said.